


Remembering the Red Room

by PrincessMoon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, F/M, Headcanon, light Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 14:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11602209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessMoon/pseuds/PrincessMoon
Summary: Natasha has just been given an immersive hallucination of her most fearful, painful memories: her training in the Red Room. She's been reminded of all the pain and horror that she experienced there, but along with that also came a glimpse of the one truly good thing she had there: the Winter Soldier. It was short, but she felt herself sparring with him again, as they had countless times. On the ride to Clint's house after being attacked by the Maximoff twins, Natasha reflects on this experience, and her secret relationship with the Soldier.





	Remembering the Red Room

**Author's Note:**

> Eek! My first fan fiction ever posted! So this was inspired by the scene in Age of Ultron when Wanda sends the Avengers into hallucinations of their most painful memories and greatest fears. Famously noticed by Winter Widow shippers, in Natasha's vision, she's shown training with a man who looks suspiciously similar to Bucky. We don't very clearly see his face, and what we do see of it looks very similar to Sebastian Stan's face. I've always wondered if this was on purpose, a hint at a future story covering Bucky and Natasha's past relationship in the Red Room. I like to tell myself that the man in her vision was Bucky, but his left arm is clearly flesh, not metal. So this drabble is inspired by that. I wrote it imagining Natasha is reflecting on it shortly after it happens, like overnight on their way to Clint's house. It progressed to a reflection on her past encounters with Bucky, inspired by her account of their interaction in Iran that she gives Steve in Winter Soldier.
> 
> Also - I couldn't manage to get it to keep the full paragraph breaks that I put in, so the formatting is a little odd. Sorry! If anyone wants to tell me how to fix that I would appreciate it!

His left arm was flesh.  
The vision wasn't a hallucination. It was a memory. One I'd done my best to block, but you can only bury something like that so deep. The only difference was that his arm had been made of flesh, not the cool, hard metal it had been when I'd known him. The metal it still was. Would always be. I'd been intrigued by that arm from the first time I saw him, our first day of our final training stages, when the strongest soldier known to man would test us. There were only seven of us left in my class. The other sixteen had been eliminated for inadequacy. More would be lost in this stage. His arm was one of the first things that caught my attention. What was it made of? How did it work? Did he have any feeling in it? How did he lose his flesh arm?  
He couldn't tell me, of course. He had no memory of who he was before he was the revered Winter Soldier. He couldn't remember having a different arm.  
He felt exactly as I remembered – warm, steady, soft. How he could be those things after all he'd been through, I had no idea, and that made him that much more amazing to me. Seeing his strength, how he'd survived all the abuse he'd been put through and still managed to feel, to love, to care, it gave me strength. Made me believe that maybe I could survive this, too. It wasn't even as bad as what he'd been through, right?  
But what was the point of surviving if he was only ever going to be tortured, used like a machine, have his entire identity stripped away from him? It had been a decade now since we'd last seen each other and he recognized me. He had no idea who I was anymore. He barely had it in him to care if I lived or died.  
At least he hadn't killed me, even though it would have been the smart thing to do. He'd had the chance twice now. But that was all I could ever expect of him, ever again. After what they did to him when they discovered us, it shouldn't have surprised me when he shot me, but it did. Not an intellectual surprise, but a deeper, harder to pin down kind of surprise. Even though I'd known it was a possibility and was even preparing for it, something happened in my heart when the bullet hit, when the quiet sound of his rifle went off. The sight of him had stunned me, lifted something in me, despite knowing what it meant. After he'd shot me, through the pain and the knowledge that I needed immediate medical attention, I had started to chase after him, desperate to get to him, to wake him up, somehow. Maybe just seeing my face up close would be enough. Maybe if he heard my voice. But by the time I got over the deep, inexplicable shock of the bullet in my side and begun running in his direction, he was gone.  
I didn't understand why he'd left already. He would be ordered to leave no witnesses. He should have been preparing to shoot me in a deadly spot, make sure I stayed silent forever, like our captors had always wanted both of us to be. But he had simply vanished into nothingness. I'd seen him do that so many times, but never from me. He'd always run to me, not away. Until they'd taken us from each other. Forever, I now realized. It had taken me this long to accept it, but now I knew. Except that I apparently still hadn't accepted it. Knowing isn't the same as accepting.  
“Lyubov moya!” I'd cried out, screaming as loudly as I could possibly manage. I knew he would hear me. He had enhanced speed, but he also had enhanced hearing. My love.  
I waited for a solid minute, more than enough time for him to return, if my voice had triggered anything in him.  
It didn't.  
Now I knew that there was no chance of him ever coming back to me. Steve had triggered something in him, but how much did he really remember? Enough to save Steve from drowning, but not enough to stick around, or come to find him in the year since then. Not even the childhood memories of Steve could bring him back. The person in the memory was lost forever. I never even really had him, no matter how much I felt like I did. He was never mine and he never would be. He was Steve's, and then he was Hydra's. He would probably always be Hydra's now. When they wiped him after we were discovered, they made sure that there was none of him left.


End file.
